


live with your ghost

by serenityfails



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/M, Grief, Post-Here Lies the Abyss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:59:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4981795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityfails/pseuds/serenityfails
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Warden-Commander Tabris receives news of Adamant, she and her companions are forced to re-evaluate the purpose of their mission, and what the future may hold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	live with your ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Love and adoration to my best friend [electricshoebox](http://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoebox) for beta reading and telling me it's worth reading and basically carrying me through life. Seriah Tabris is my forever girl, and while I'm not predominantly a writer, I do drawings and little comics about her story on my [art tumblr](http://serenity-fails.tumblr.com/tagged/seriah+tabris) sometimes.

They had holed up in a cave off the coast of Lake Calenhad when Leliana's raven arrived, eyes like wet droplets of ink blinking vacantly at their Commander. Velanna had coaxed a modest fire from a pile of damp sticks, and she looked up from it sharply to watch Tabris unwrap the message from the creature's leg. Sigrun set aside the field rations she'd been half-heartedly picking at, old bread from the last village they had chanced a stop in and a strip of dried meat, breath still as she joined Velanna in listening.

"Any word of Alistair?" Nathaniel asked, worrying an arrowhead between his dirt-lined fingers. "The other Wardens?" It wasn't terribly long after they'd set off on this mad quest, Warden-Commander Tabris and her four most trusted companions, that the song began to haunt them-- too soon, too suddenly, too all-at-once to be real. Not long after that, word reached them that every Warden in Vigil's Keep had vanished like smoke in the night. Tabris looked grim as a hangman the day she had sent her partner alone to seek help from Leliana's Inquisition. It had been a long, frustrating mission, clinging to the faintest rumors in hopes that one would lead them to a cure, praying they could stave off madness long enough for it to matter. Then, just as suddenly, silence; they had stopped hearing the Calling only days before, and while they had all been relieved to finally rest for a moment without dark whispers pulling at their minds, each of them were also filled with nervous energy waiting for news on why, and how.

"Commander?" Sigrun said after a silent minute, the rhythmic _drip, drip, dripping_ of water from within the cave echoing loudly in the dead air between them. Nathaniel saw the Commander's hand tense against the parchment, the slightest tremor against her rigid form. He felt dread slip cold and leaden down into the pit of his stomach. _Drip, drip, drip._

"Well? What does it say?" Velanna said, words sharp around her worry. Nathaniel watched Tabris's mouth open slightly, then snap closed. Her eyes darted rapidly across the message again, though she surely must have been done reading already, and in that moment, he knew. He felt the phantom ache of the letter he himself had once received, notifying him of his father's death. How cold and distant it had seemed, how impossible. How hard it was to understand that though he had only just read the words, only just begun to feel the loss in that moment, his father had been dead a month, without his knowing. People were supposed to know these things, weren't they?

So it must have been for Alistair. It would have taken a raven quite some time to fly to them from the far reaches of Orlais, even more for the Inquisition's scouts to locate them where they searched in the wilderness. Whatever had come to pass, it had done so long before today. Nathaniel stood, silencing Velanna with a look and a gesture.

"Commander," he said, then, "Seriah."

The Commander's face crumpled.

"Ah," was all she managed to force out, a choked sound that became a heave, the air punched out of her lungs, before she swayed where she stood. Nathaniel tried to step in, to steady her, but Sigrun was there before he reached her. A strong arm slung around Seriah’s waist, and Sigrun clasped one of Seriah's hands as it clutched the parchment so tightly it crumpled under her fingers.

"Easy, easy now," Sigrun said in the tone of someone calming a spooked horse, guiding the trembling elf to sit by Velanna's fire. "Come on, let's sit down, okay?"

"Alistair--" Seriah croaked, staring past the parchment into the dull, gray sky outside the mouth of the cave. Tears spilled over her cheeks, rolled down her neck, into the collar of her worn leathers. Her chest worked too quickly with panicked, shallow breaths. "Alist-- he--"

He shouldn't be watching this, he thought. None of them should. He realized he had never seen the Commander cry-- the day she'd received word of her cousin's assassination, she had quietly taken the message to her quarters and spent the rest of the day in solitude, accepting only Alistair as a visitor. She had been stony upon re-emerging, dispassionately refusing Velanna's promise to help her seek revenge and returning to her duty as if nothing else had changed. In time, she was the same hard but compassionate woman he had come to know as a friend. He had learned a little about the life she had endured before the Blight, the many losses she had faced despite her limited years, each one settling within her like a stone at the bottom of a river. There was no one he knew with a greater will to survive. Seeing her crack open in front of them now shook him in a way he hadn't imagined.

"Breathe," Sigrun bid her firmly. "In, out. It's all right. Just slow down." Nathaniel wondered if she'd done this many times before, for grieving Legionnaires.

"Gone," Seriah said, as small and broken as anything. "He's gone."

===

Lost in the Fade.

All of them were familiar with the treacherous nature of the realm of dreams, but to be taken there bodily, to be left behind and sealed away... Nathaniel had seen fantastic things since his conscription, impossible things. Still, it was difficult to swallow.

He met Alistair many long months after he had taken the Joining, but the man was hard to dislike, unless you were Velanna, in which case it was quite easy. Quick with a joke and a smile, experienced but never cocky, he had gained the loyalty of their ever-growing collection of new recruits with ease. The Commander they respected, idolized, but Alistair they befriended.

Nathaniel knew how thoughtful a friend Tabris could be, but despite her short stature she made for an undeniably intimidating figure. Her strong features seemed carved from ironbark, through which ink and battle scars cut an alarming path. That, and the nature of her fame, made her somewhat unapproachable. Years ago, in his dank Vigil's Keep jail cell, he remembered how startling it was to find his Father's killer an elven woman standing nearly a foot beneath him. More than that, he remembered her unflinching, unafraid in the face of his anger and threats of violence. This was the woman who had stared down an Archdemon and lived. He understood that reality fully in those moments.

But when Alistair arrived at Vigil's Keep, he watched that hard woman's face transform, alight with a warmth and tenderness he had never seen in her. She had extended her hand in friendship to all of them, had laughed and shared their lives, but until that moment he did not know he had never before seen her truly at ease. He wondered if he would ever see her such again.

It had grown darker, and the strength of the Commander's voice seemed to have retreated with the sun. Sigrun had held her through the worst of her tears, and when she finally lifted her head, it was only to give voice to the worst of her fears. What if their mission, for all it seemed doomed at every turn, was truly a lost cause? What if there was no cure, and the fate of their Wardens, the fate of Alistair, to die at the command of an ancient terror, was all for nothing?

"The things I've done," she rasped. "Unspeakable things. I made so many concessions, forced him to..." She clutched at Sigrun's offered arm, one hand trembling, attempting to hide her haunted face from view. "And for what? It saved his life, but only because I d-- I didn't want to be--"

She seemed to collapse in on herself, Sigrun rubbing between her shoulders while she tried to shut the rest of the world away.

"All the decisions you made were to protect Ferelden," Nathaniel said, kneeling before her. He looked to Velanna for support, but she refused to acknowledge them, arms folded tightly in front of her as she hovered near the exit of the cave. "All of us know that. None of us would be here now if not for you."

"You don't know that," Tabris said, with a bitter, coughing laugh. "You didn't know me before. I did it for myself. Because I was afraid to die. That's the only reason. I didn't want to die alone." She finally shrugged away from Sigrun and covered her face with her hands, her knees drawn up to her chest. "Now it doesn't matter. Alistair died alone, and so will I when the true Calling comes. Maker forgive me."

"I cannot listen to another moment of this," Velanna finally snapped. She stormed off into the dark, showing no care for her state of dress, her overarmor and boots discarded when they made camp.

"Velanna--" Nathaniel called to her as she vanished into the trees, then looked back helplessly to Sigrun. She sighed and began to unroll a wool blanket from her travel pack to wrap around their fragile Commander's shoulders.

"Go on," she said, quiet but firm, and Nathaniel felt gratitude, warm and effusive, surge through him. He was adrift without orders, but Sigrun anchored him. "I'll stay with her."

"I'm sorry."

"Hush." She tossed her head towards the woods. "Bring Miss Grump home safe."

===

Even if Velanna had been trying to slip away unnoticed, it would have been a simple matter for Nathaniel to scout her out. She was breathing hard in anger, snapping twigs as she stalked, swatting branches away from her face as if they offended her. Nathaniel hurried to surpass her pace, lungs heavy with damp early-evening mist.

"Velanna, wait," he said when she was in reach. She didn't acknowledge him, and continued swiftly, her path less obstructed than his by her height relative to the branches in their path. He grunted in frustration when one she jostled whipped across his cheek, a sharp streak of pain. "Velanna!"

"What!" She spun on him so suddenly he nearly stumbled into her, her face dark with anger in the fading light. "Don't tell me you wanted to listen to the Commander cry all night."

"None of us are happy to hear of Alistair's death." He frowned. "Or at least, I thought not."

"Of course I'm not _happy_ ," she spat. "I would have thought you knew me better than that by now."

"That was unkind of me," Nathaniel conceded, and sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, where a headache was beginning to form. "I only meant... Seriah is our friend as well as our Commander, is she not? She needs our help."

"Didn't you hear her? She doesn't want our help, she wants to give up! Everything we've worked for, for years, all because she can't live without some... some _shemlen!_ " Velanna's jaw worked wordlessly in her agitation. "I gave up _everything I might have been_ for the chance to save Seranni. Now she wants to call it done? I won't sit idly by and watch her throw everything away!"

"She's _grieving_ ," Nathaniel said, low and warning. "She's in shock." He tried to release some of the tension in his shoulders, approaching her carefully. "You know what it's like, to act out in grief. She will come around. But not without our help."

Velanna still looked as if she had swallowed something sour, but she relented. "Perhaps," she said, and turned her gaze downward. "I had to leave, though. I would have been of no help. I am not good at... at handling the feelings of others."

"I know," Nathaniel said, and Velanna huffed a laugh.

"You could at least have the courtesy to lie about it."

"You wouldn't care for me if I did," he said. He stepped closer, sliding his thumb along the sharp line of her jaw, exerting no pressure, but she lifted her head to face him all the same, silently allowing the contact.

"You do, then?" he asked, after a long moment examining her face: the faint wrinkles at the corner of her eyes that had grown deeper in the time he had known her, the crease between her eyebrows that only seemed to fade when she was deep in dreamless sleep, or in rare moments when she allowed herself to linger in his bed, careless of the world outside its walls. "Care for me?"

She flushed to the tips of her ears, and turned her face into his collar to avoid his eyes. "You know I do, foolish man."

"Then I'm not just 'some _shemlen_ ' to you," he murmured into her hair, and she pulled back, tensed, as if shocked by an errant spell.

"That isn't," she said, voice raised in indignation, before her mouth snapped shut with an audible click of her teeth. Her jaw worked behind her pursed lips as she searched for the words.

"Isn't what?"

"Let me speak, you-- I only meant that however much she may have-- have _loved_ him," she said finally, as if the words were nails pressing into her throat, "our mission is _more important_." She took a step back, leaning the weight of her shoulders against a tree, lifting her chin to meet Nathaniel's heavy glare unflinching. "More important than my life. More important than yours. Everything I have built, I would sacrifice to give Seranni another chance. Wouldn't you? For the sake of your sister, and her child, for their future, wouldn't you endure anything?"

He held her sharp gaze, eyes murky green in the encroaching darkness, and remembered with a shameful pang who had reminded him, when he had been ready to see Amaranthine burn, exactly whose home it was-- not his own conscience, but his Commander, ever one to root for the underdog. His family survived, and though they took losses, the walls of Vigil's Keep held. Whether that had been for the greater good or merely the good of his own sentimental heart, in the end, he couldn't rightly say.

"I would," he eventually agreed. "If, Maker forbid, I were to lose you, I would carry on, for their sake, if not my own. There is much I have yet to accomplish, and I would see it done."

Velanna seemed satisfied by his answer, if not pleased, and she nodded her approval.

"However," he said, more quietly, stepping close enough to feel the heat of her through his leathers. She sucked in a breath, tilting her head back further to keep his eye. "If I were to lose you..." Nathaniel traced the jut of her cheekbone, tawny skin chapped from travelling, and drew her wild hair away from her eyes. He took in the twists and curves of her _vallaslin_ which had become so familiar to him over the years, and which she had once quietly explained to him symbolized the elven goddess, Ghilan'nain. She had been hesitant, perhaps, of sharing some treasured bit of her history with a human, but also proud. Beautiful. "There would be no joy left for me, in this life," he confessed, voice a quiet crackle in the dense air. "Only duty."

"Don't say that," Velanna hissed, and made a fist in the leather at his collar.

"Why not?"

"You cannot say that," she said, and crushed her mouth to his, tangled her long fingers in his hair, and pulled him to her. Her tongue pressed between his lips, demanding, and what could he do but give, give, give?

"My lady," he breathed into her mouth. She swallowed it.

He dipped at the knee to better accommodate her height, the hand that wasn't cradling her face coming to rest against the rough bark of the tree behind her. She took the opportunity to press herself closer, to take advantage of the friction of his knee between her thighs, and groaned against his chin.

"Touch me," she commanded, and he complied, dragging his hand down to palm her breast beneath her tunic. She growled in response, arching her back insistently. "Yes," she breathed, kissing a distracted line across his jaw towards his ear, which she bit. Nathaniel gasped and jerked in her grip, feeling her grind against him insistently. He wasn't hard, and didn't think that would be a possibility given his state of mind, but her closeness was good, sharp and undeniably real, something to ground him. "More, you fool, I want--"

"Are you certain?" Nathaniel pulled back enough, blinking the daze from his eyes, trying to guide her to stop writhing for a moment and face him. "I don't think I can..."

"I don't care, I just want-- I need you to--" She groaned in frustration, yanking his hand down between her thighs. "Here, now," she whined, the reedy tone as close as she ever came to pleading. "Nathaniel."

He kissed her again, soundly, and said, "As my lady commands."

Velanna was already loosening the band of her leggings, and Nathaniel hurriedly buffed his fingers against his shirt before sticking three of them into his mouth, wetting them. Velanna was perched on his knee, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders as he slipped his hand under the band of her leggings and beneath her smalls, sliding through the coarse hair of her vulva. He could feel her heat here so much more acutely, but the saliva coating his fingers provided most of the lubrication as he slipped his wide, careful fingers between her labia, gently to ease the way.

Velanna twisted, pressing down at him impatiently, growling her frustration. "Now," she groaned. "Harder." He sighed, kissing her forehead softly, though she scoffed at the tenderness. If it was quick and rough she needed, he could give that to her, but not like this.

He pressed down gently as he slid his fingers back out, flat across her clit, which made her hum approvingly, before he wet them in his mouth once more and returned them to where she wanted them, starting to work her at a slow but insistent pace. She huffed and sighed, clinging to his neck, hips rocking steadily as he did. "More," she said, again and again. "More, more."

Nathaniel shifted their bodies where they leaned against the tree, finding an angle where he could put his elbow into it, and the difference was immediately apparent, Velanna's sharp nails digging white crescents into the meat of Nathaniel's shoulders. Her face was flushed and hot where she tucked it against his neck, kissing aimlessly, sloppy lips and teeth, muffled yelps of pleasure as she bucked against his hand.

"There, there, there, don't you dare move, you fool, you-- you infuriating-- ah!"

She arched, pressed her whole body against his, working her hips in tight little circles to keep his fingers where she needed them most. "So close, don't you leave, don't you dare leave me, Nathaniel, I--" Her voice cracked, and her body tensed and drew up against him. He felt her pulsing against his fingers, the thrum of her heartbeat pounding as she came. He drew back slightly, traced gentler paths across her labia, every near brush of her oversensitive clit sending a tremor through her all the way down to her toes.

He disengaged carefully, stepping back to help her get her clothes back in order, pulling a polishing rag from his back pocket to quickly clean his hand. Her eyes were closed while she drifted, coming down slowly, but she reached out to pull him back to her by the hem of his tunic when she had the awareness. She wasn't smiling, but that crease between her eyebrows had faded, and he kissed her there.

"Is my lady satisfied?" he asked, smoothing the rumpled cloth of her tunic down her sides as she sighed.

"For now," she said, voice gone soft and yielding in the aftermath. He worried for her, at times, when she became frantic like this, but it was worth it in the end, to see her so peaceful.

"Thank you," she added quietly, a moment later, somewhat chagrined. "I feel-- well." She ran the flats of her palms up his chest, wrapping them behind his neck. "There may be a few things you're good for."

"Just a few?" He leaned in to kiss her lips, took the lower one with him, and gently released it as he pulled away.

"One or two," she replied, a little breathless, and he chuckled warmly. Velanna tucked her head between his neck and shoulder once more, drawing her hands down to wrap tightly around his middle. "Unbearable human."

He kissed the tip of her prominent ear, delighting in her shiver, and buried his nose in the tangles of her hair. "I love you."

Velanna went perfectly still against him, still holding tightly but hardly daring to move. It was nothing he hadn't said to her before, but it was still difficult for her to acknowledge.

"I know," she said after a long moment, silent but for the emerging sounds of insects chirping. "That's why I trust you to carry on my work. When I'm... if I were to die." She loosened her arms around his waist, looking up at him with quiet determination. "Give my writings to my people. Find Seranni, and help her... if you can. Will you promise to do this for me?"

"Velanna," Nathaniel began, but she continued before he could protest.

"I knew when I volunteered myself for this life that it may be a short one. We do not have the luxury of making plans. I need to know that my work will outlast me." She sighed and touched the red scrape across his cheek where her wayward branch had struck him. "In return, should you fall before me, I will make sure your sister and her family are cared for, in your place. They will not come to harm."

"Velanna," he said once more, overcome by a feeling he couldn't give words to. His life in the Wardens had been more fulfilling than he could have fathomed, but he could not imagine that life without Velanna. That he knew he might one day have to was a bitter truth indeed. "I swear, on my love, I will do as you ask."

"Thank you," she said with relief, and kissed the mark on his cheek, and then his lips, and then deeper. When she pulled back, her eyes fell somewhere in the region of his lips and dared no higher. "I... you have made this path... bearable, for me. For all that you frustrate me, I find there's no one else I'd rather sleep in nug holes and trade insults with. Somehow. You and Sigrun... and Seriah. You are all my friends. Perhaps the first I have had, in my life." Nathaniel almost felt as if he could see her holding the word "clan" in her throat, before she shook her head and swallowed it down. He smiled sadly, taking her hand in his and laying a solemn kiss on her knuckles.

"Sigrun will be missing us," he said against her hand. "We should get back to them, make sure all is well. Get some rest." Carding her fingers through his, he let them fall to their sides. "And perhaps tomorrow I can hunt down a rabbit or two for breakfast to take the strain off our rations."

"Not without me you can't. You were trained to shoot the feathers off a nobleman's fancy hat, not track game in a wood. I could scare a whole nest out and have my pick before you even spotted one."

"I did my fair share of hunting as a squire, my lady. You underestimate my abilities."

"Well then, you will simply have to prove yourself, won't you? First kill wins, and the loser cleans and cooks."

"Deal," he said, and squeezed her hand once before letting it go to follow close behind her, towards home.


End file.
